This is the class blog for Eng 1102 at GA Tech called "Fiction, Human Rights, and Social Responsibility." The purpose of this blog is to extend our discussion beyond the classroom and to become aware of human rights issues that exist in the world today and how technology has played a role in either solving or aggravating them. Blogs will be a paragraph long (250 words) and students will contribute once every three weeks according to class number. Entries must be posted by Friday midnight.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Executions in Iraq. Nothing being done

Human Rights Watch recently reported that there has been a rapid increase in the number of executions carried out by the judicial system of Iraq. In the last month, 50 people have already been executed with 150 more slated for death. It is believed that this is happening because the Iraqi government sees it as the easiest way to combat their problems ranging from insurrection to terrorism. However, it is believed that not all of the trials used to convict these people are even fair. Some people have been sentenced to death from terrorist convictions based off the testimony of one person who, in some cases, was allowed to remain anonymous and could not be challenged by the defendant. These trials are clearly not fair and something has to be changed.

The country of Iraq is just using death sentences as a scapegoat to avoid dealing with their problems. They do not want to invest the time or money into giving these people a fair trial. First of all, the death penalty itself is highly controversial because it takes away the right to life. Even worse is to wrongfully convict someone of a crime and then execute them for something they did not even do. According to the article, "International human rights law requires that where the death penalty has
not been abolished, it should be imposed only for the most serious
crimes and after scrupulous adherence to international fair trial
standards, including the rights of the defendant to competent defense
counsel, to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and not to be
compelled to confess guilt." It is obvious that Iraq is in violation of this law and there needs to be some sort of oversight or intervention in order to prevent any more unjust deaths.